Lots of Fun in Week One [Part 1]
18 November 2014
A lot happened during my first week back in London.
Let’s start with my newly acquired accommodation.
The Flat
I took a massive gamble in securing my room in London. A gamble that no sound-minded or logical person would have likely taken. However, given that my logic had thus far been based on calculated risk, it made sense… and I pretty much, had no other option.
While waiting for my flight in Belfast, I searched online for a room. I had no accommodation booked and needed a roof over my head THAT night. There were beds in abundance however, the prices were crazy. One month’s rent back home equated to a week’s worth of rent in London. In other words, rent was on average, four times more expensive.
The distance from the city was an important factor for me. I didn’t want to be outside of zone two, despite accommodation within zone two constituting highway robbery.
If I chose to go outside zone two, what I would save in rent I would spend on travel. I figured I was better off being within zone two and buying the convenience of accessibility.
Just before my boarding-call, I found a room that sounded semi-decent for one hundred and twenty pounds per week. I knew it wouldn’t be flash but it sounded legit and was in zone two. It also included bills, Internet and furniture, saving me the hassle of having to purchase and set these things up myself. I didn’t plan on staying in London very long, so I wanted an arrangement where I could slot in and slot out with ease.
I didn’t want to pay for another bullshit hotel in London to afford me some thinking time, so I made the decision to take the risk and secure the room online. I called the number at the bottom of the online add. An Eastern European woman answered. She told me the room was still available and if I wanted to secure it, I would need to transfer her two-hundred pounds via PayPal.
This made me nervous. I wanted to pay her in cash upon my arrival. I tried to reason with her, explaining that the room had been listed for two weeks already and the likelihood of someone securing it in the couple of hours it would take me to get there was slim-to-none.
The woman had me by the balls and knew it.
Insistent, she would only accept my ad-hoc application on the proviso I paid via PayPal.
I had no choice!
I was about to board my flight to London and needed a room that night. So, I did it! I took a leap of faith and transferred the two-hundred pounds without so much as a picture, to indicate what the room looked like or who this woman even was.
The room was mine (I hoped)!
One thing I could tick off the list (I hoped)!
I flew back to London on the Pilot’s ticket and caught a bus back into town.
From Liverpool Street station I caught the train to Westferry Station, the closest station to my new room. The Eastern European woman had been kind enough to suggest meeting me out front of the station, so we could walk to the flat together.
Unless you have lived in London, you probably won’t grasp the significance of this gesture. People in London can be ruthless. Tis seldom the occasion when someone goes that extra mile to make your life a little bit easier. So, when the woman offered to meet me at the station to help me carry my bags, I saw it as a grandiose gesture which instilled faith that I had made the right decision… or rather, the Universe had directed me down the right path.
When we got to the flat, I wasn’t horrified as I had anticipated I would be. The place was alright. It would do for the time being! The shared communal area had been converted into another bedroom, which made the kitchen the only shared space (bathroom and toilet aside).
The Eastern European woman led me into the kitchen, were I detected the distinct smell of cigarette lingering under the overwhelming aroma of tomato and basil. At the stove-top, stood two Italian women preparing their mid-afternoon Sunday feast. I was greeted with smiles and brief introductions before being taken up to my room.
It was small, had a single bed, a chest of draws and a mirror. Nothing fancy, but it would do. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, I reminded myself. Given my indecisiveness had eroded my savings, it was good enough.
When my chaperone left, I collapsed onto my new bed. It felt good to drop my bags knowing it was somewhere I could call ‘my own’ for a while. I was relieved to not have to drag my belongings around with me. There was no denying that the last month had given me guns that were anything but feminine and leg muscles that could kick in a door.
I could breathe momentarily knowing that, at least for the foreseeable future, I was based in London.
All I needed to do was secure a job.
Diary entry:
Despite the fact that:
there is a small forest growing in the bottom of the ONE toilet that doesn’t flush properly; or
I need to take a roll of toilet paper as well as a plunger into the toilet because every time I take a shit, it’s a gamble as to whether or not it will flush; or
that it is contractually forbidden to flush toilet paper because the pipes cannot handle poo and paper simultaneously; or
I have to hook the broken piece of plastic attached to the shower head into the hole in the grout between the tiles to stop it from smashing into my head; or
there is an acid burn in the bottom of the combined shower/ bathtub that feels like broken glass; or
there is better water pressure in the kitchen tap than the shower head; or
the kitchen seems to be the communal smoking area…
I actually like the place.
It’s in a great location. It’s quiet at night. It has security doors, shops down the road (including a Lidl which sells discounted groceries) and is generally a pleasant area. I think I did pretty well in taking the risk.
Good start!
The Housemates
AMADEO: Bologna, Italy.
A thirty-three year-old physiotherapist who has the prettiest face paired with the most hideous hair! The contradiction of those beautiful big brown eyes and long elegant lashes framed by that wispy and greasy black mop is a travesty. It’s like a very long comb-over. I shoulder length comb-over. I don’t know why he’s insistent on growing it so long, especially when he clearly doesn’t wash it. Perhaps he’s trying to compensate in length for what he is losing on top?
His beautifully straight teeth are encased in plump pink kissable lips, which in turn are encased in a full dark beard. I’m not going to lie; the beard is impressive. What he lacks in height, he compensates for in facial hair.
The thing I like about him the most is his personality. He seems to be a really nice person. I think he feels a connection to me because he left Australia six months ago. He says he spent two years in Melbourne on a working visa.
In his thick Italian accent and with wild European gesticulation, he said, ‘sometimes it’s so hard being in London. The Brits find it hard to understand us because of our Australian accent. We speak too fast for them… it’s like a machine gun going off to them. It’s almost like a different language, mate! My English is definitely Australian English- I love it, I love my Australian accent. It’s so hard being an Aussie here in London. Like the word ‘heaps’. I say ‘heaps’ all the time. Apparently, I’m speaking another language when I say the word ‘heaps’ because according to the Brits, ‘heaps’ isn’t an English word. It’s an effort I tell you, I mean common- I speak Australian, it can’t be that hard for you people to understand!’
I had to fight back the urge to giggle. The bloke couldn’t have sounded more Italian if he tried.
I like him a lot.
He is a bit touchy-feely with all his hug hugs/ kiss kisses, but it isn’t in a sexual or creepy way. It is more like: I’m passing you in the kitchen- lets kiss and hug, I’m passing you in the hall- let’s kiss and hug, I just came out of the toilet- let’s kiss and hug. I think it’s just an Italian thing. The man likes to kiss and hug!
EMILIO: Madrid, Spain.
Emilio arrived the day after I moved in. He is a twenty-two year-old Spaniard, super skinny, super tall and super young.
I adore him!
His intention is to be in the UK for approximately a year to improve his English. While undertaking an English course, he is also slumming it away in a hospitality job that pays fuck all and treats him like shit!
He has this goofy and clumsy presence, almost as though he hasn’t quiet worked out how to coordinate and balance the length of his limbs yet.
I love having him around! He’s cynical about the London hospitality scene and always willing to indulge me in a bitch session.
The one thing that does drive me nuts about him though, is his inability to put the toilet seat back down.
That aside, he is my favorite!
Emilio’s room is right next to mine, while Amadeo’s is opposite. Between the three of us, there is always an interesting conversation or a kiss and hug session being conducted at the top of the staircase.
LUCIA & MIGUEL: Madrid, Spain
Lucia and Miguel are a mother and son duo. It’s a bit of an odd set-up, if you ask me. They share the other bedroom on the top floor. At a guess, I would put Lucia as being in her early forties. Emilio is around twenty-two. They are in the UK ‘to try something different’, apparently. I suspect there’s more to the story but haven’t probed further.
While Miguel has managed to secure himself a hospitality job, Lucia hasn’t been so lucky. The woman is incredibly smart. She speaks Spanish, Italian, French and German, but her English is basically non-existent. She told me she wants a job either in a hotel or at a restaurant, but that her limited English has proven debilitating on the job market.
This is the sad reality of many international folk in London. Me in included!
Not to look down upon service industries, but they are at the lower end of the paygrade spectrum. You have doctors, lawyers, accountants and various other professionals working for minimum wage because they’re potential is buried under the stigma of their alien status. Despite having several degrees and being a native English speaker, I was informed by a recruiter that if I wanted to work as a lawyer, the industry would discount two years of my experience in paygrade consideration. Why this is the case, I don’t know!
Is London really that good?
I don’t think so!
For me, it’s merely a bridge until the path of my Viking Venture once again unfurls in front of me. I know I stand alone in this, because despite the shitty conditions, foreigners continue to flock to this city.
CIRI & ORIA: Rome, Italy
Ciri and Oria share the converted loungeroom. They’re both really nice women but largely keep to themselves. Both are in their early-twenties and work hospitality jobs in Strathfield. If they aren’t working, they’re partying. If they aren’t partying, they’re sleeping. I rarely see them. From the limited conversation I have had, I’ve established that they’re in the UK ‘just because’. Like most Europeans, their aim is to improve their English before returning home and getting amazing jobs in big corporations.
The Pickled Spatchcock
My first trial shift was at a place located in the city, a few meters away from the Barbican Tube Station to be exact. The manager sent me a lovely email inviting me in for a trial. I was really excited about being afforded the opportunity, given it had been over ten years since I had done any hospitality work.
I should have known things weren’t going to go as anticipated, when it took me three trains and cost me six pounds just to get to the bloody place.
When I arrived, everything seemed really disorganised. The floor manager, who looked like a cross between Harry Potter and a pigeon, wasn’t expecting me and didn’t know who I was. After ten minutes of disjointed running around, I was finally given an apron and told to follow this random Italian dude.
The random Italian dude’s name was Geo. Geo introduced himself and asked where I was from. I told him I was from Canberra and asked if he had ever heard of it. A look of absolute horror took over his face and his chest concaved as he clung to the waiter’s station.
Had I said something wrong?
Had I insulted him by assuming he didn’t know my city?
Composing himself he finally replied, ‘My ex-wife is from Canberra. She’s also a lawyer. She broke my heart and left me.’ Awkward silence. Usually, it was the case that I had to explain to people that Canberra was the unknown Capital City of Australia. This was an unusual occurrence. Of all the people in all the world, I was assigned to shadow a casualty of Canberra love.
I responded, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. That isn’t very nice. I’m sure that was really hard for you.’
There wasn’t really anything else I could say.
Once he recovered from the shock of having met another female lawyer from Canberra, Geo turned out to be a nice person. In fact, he was probably the only nice person in the entire establishment.
Now don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fantastic when people are enthusiastic about their jobs. I do however, think there’s a point where enthusiasm escalates to hyperactivity. This was exactly my experience at the Pickled Spatchcock.
The venue was a battleground of over enthusiastic wait staff and aggressive service delivery.
Everyone needed to chill the fuck out.
It was like: GO GO GO… GET THE FOOD TO THE TABLE… NOW NOW NOW… The maître de was worse than a drill sergeant.
It wasn’t a calm place to dine. In fact, I was surprised that people even bothered going to the place. Customers could see and hear the managers running the floor like a military parade ground. It wasn’t professional, nor were the frequent and mandatory huddle and squat sessions in the middle of the dining floor.
The environment was way too aggressive for me. I was in London to have fun and hopefully find myself again.
Once upon a time I had been in the Australian Air Force Reserves. While I was willing to huddle, squat and take orders for my country, I wasn’t going to do it for the delivery of meat and three veg.
During the shift I saw a waitress eat food from the bin. When I say eat, I mean she HOOVERED it down. The skinny little girl, who had been mute the entire shift was pushing the leftovers into her mouth faster than she could chew. Gagging, her jaw line contorted making her face look as though she was in the midst of a seizure. London was expensive but it wasn’t so expensive that one couldn’t afford to eat. It was an odd sight.
It was also unfortunate that I was assigned to the table of this rough-as-guts bloke, who repeatedly asked me if I thought his girlfriend was sexy and ‘shagable’. While the question bothered me, it didn’t appear to bother the woman in the slightest. In fact, I think she was somewhat flattered by his vulgarity.
At one point I looked the woman straight in the face, hoping she would control her out-of-control boyfriend. She smiled back at me with her collagen enhanced lips, battered her false lashed eyelids and flicked her snap-in hair extensions with a giggle. She then proceeded to tap her plastic press-on nails on the flute of champagne and ice cubes that sat sweating in front of her.
I exhaled and walked away, knowing all too well I would be asked the same question upon my return to their table.
As the shift drew to an end, I was over being yelled at for not knowing what I didn’t know. I spent five solid hours running plates of game and poultry from one end of the restaurant to the other.
Just when my patience had almost evaporated, I was made to endure a ten-minute rant about how Australian women are ‘dangerous’. Specifically: ‘Australian women will rip your balls right off from your body. Them women is mean… real mean. Gotta be careful of Australian women. They ain’t nice like our women.’ The patron was a fuckwit. I didn’t argue with him. I was tired and wanted to go home. I had worked five hours for free under the guise of a ‘trial’, it wasn’t worth my angst. I simply smiled and walked away.
Hopefully my lackluster response left him fearing for his safety… like perhaps I would wait for him in an alleyway after his meal to seek my revenge.
At the end of the unpaid trial shift, I was offered the job at six pounds and fifty pence per hour, with thirty pence per hour in tips. Apparently, I was only entitled to a small portion of the tips because I was new. I had to earn my right to tips. That was how the Pickled Spatchcock operated.
In addition, I was told I would be required to work between forty to sixty hours per week and finish at two in the morning. When I asked how I was meant to get home because the Tube stopped running at one in the morning, the manager replied: ‘catch a cab!’
Essentially, I would have to work an hour just to pay for my Tube ticket to get to work and then work another three hours to pay for the cab home. That would leave me with only six hours of paid work out of a ten-hour shift.
FUCK THAT!
Tequila & Salt
After my shift from hell, I spent the entire next day frantically doing the rounds of the commercial district in Canary Wharf. I needed to find a job!
Travel on the Tube was so expensive in London. I needed to find something where I could walk to and from work, which meant something in Canary Wharf. I literally went into shop after shop and bar after bar asking for work.
No one was looking.
I had just about given up and accepted that I was destined to return to the shit-hole from the day before, when my phone rang. It was the manager of Tequila & Salt and he wanted me to come in for a trial.
Tequila & Salt was a ten-minute walk away from my room.
I wanted this to work so badly.
It was perfect!
………….
The next day I set off for my trial shift feeling optimistic.
I was halfway there when all of a sudden it started to sprinkle with rain. I stopped under the eaves of the local police station and waited a few minutes. The rain quickly turned into a torrential downpour. It was coming down heavy and I was getting very wet, very quickly.
I didn’t know what to do.
My shift was due to start in twenty minutes and even the five-minute sprint to get there, would result in me getting absolutely saturated.
I decided to wait ten minutes in the hope that the rain would ease back.
The rain finally eased, turning back into a sprinkle just long enough for me to run like an animal across the main road, down the alleyway and under the bridge out front of the bar.
I was out of breath and spent the following five minutes trying to twirl myself dry and regain my composure. Feeling deflated, I also started to question my decision to leave Sweden. Specifically, that I should have stayed and tried harder to find a job. I had accepted defeat so quickly. I also questioned whether I should go back to Copenhagen.
I knew it was too late for such thinking, though. The reality was that I was back in London, standing underneath a bridge trying to dry myself, so I could work for free before hopefully getting a job that would pay me less than what my fifteen-year-old brother got at MacDonald’s back home!
Still damp, I pulled myself together, sucked it up, acknowledged that fate was fate and what would be, would be. I walked through the front doors of the pub looking like a drowned rat, but willing to give it a go.
It’s what a Viking would have done!
Thank goodness I did.
The trial was great!
Everyone was lovely and the environment was poles apart from the barracks I had trialed at the day before. The venue had a fantastic vibe. I was welcomed with open arms and made to feel like I was part of the team before I even officially was.
More encouraging still, was the fact that tips were divided equally, staff were fed on every shift for free and the rate of pay was eight pounds and thirty pence per hour. It wasn’t a legal wage, but it was better than my previous offer.
Things are finally falling into place!
Viking Ventures and Nordic Nonsense
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Have a lovely week.
This is so untamed and familiar. I love it. There's a special flavor of survival that only blooms in moldy toilets and working "trials" for free.
Also, fuck the Pickled Spatchcock. And fuck anyone who sees women grinding themselves to bone just to exist in a city and thinks that’s the problem. It's certainly not the unpaid labor and housing roulette.
Love the thought of you as feral Viking running in the rain 🖤